Welcome back to another week of Pojo.com's Card of the Day! Make sure to check out my channel for some new content including a brand new channel that was made for my team, "Ragnarok". Today's card is one of my favorite shield blasts from the set and quite possibly in the game. I just love the art and color scheme! Let's take a look at Grip of Despair!

Name: Grip of Despair
Civilization: Water/Darkness
Type: Spell
Race: N/A
Level: 5
Power: N/A
Flavor Text: Just give up.
Rarity: Rare
Set Number: 90/110 l 7CLA

Abilities:
(This card enters your mana zone tapped.)
Shield Blast (Instead of putting this spell into your hand from a broken shield, you may cast it for free.)
Return target creature from the battle zone to its owner's hand. Then that player chooses and discards a card.

Grip of Despair is a level 5 shield blast that bounces a creature back to the owners hand and then forces them to discard. This is amazing if your opponent doesn't have a hand because this card essentially becomes a Terror Pit for 2 less mana! Not to mention your opponent can't do any Lux shenanigans with their Dragons since it's not directly banishing their creature!

In an average circumstance this card gets rid of a threat on board and makes your opponent lose a card in their hand. So essentially they're losing the mana they used to summon a creature and they lose a resource. This is quite the card!

For me, this card is an obvious replacement for Death Smoke. Smoke is still a great card in itself but Grip doesn't care if a creature is tapped and... oh yeah, it's a shield blast! The other aspect of this card that I love, is that it deals with all those early bottle plays. I got hit with a turn 4 and 5 bottle of wishes and was staring down a Tritonus and Andromeda! It was an uphill battle, however, Grip was able to deal with the Tritonus on my turn 5 by returning it back to my opponent's hand where I wouldn't need to worry about it for another 4-5 turns!  After a while, I was able to make a comeback and I even won that game!

I think Grip of Despair should be a 2-3 of in every deck that runs Water and Darkness, it's just that good. Give it a try and I'm sure you won't be disappointed! 

Ratings:

Constructed: 4.25/5.00 (A fairly cheap removal spell that also functions as a discard engine. Amazing when your opponent has no hand and great when you need to deal with ridiculous bottle plays!)
Limited: 4.50/5.00 (Great removal in limited and can deal with just about any creature.)

Stop back again tomorrow when we take a step toward the light side of the force! Make sure to check out my channel for new content and until next time my fellow Kaijudo Duel Masters, keep calm and game on!